Jennifer Blacklock

Our new homeschool curriculum for this year is scheduled to get here today, and I’m so excited! I’ve always been a nerd, I guess- I remember being so excited to fill my backpack with new school supplies each school year as a kid; now I still get to be excited as we get all the kids’ new school stuff for each year.

Now, I’m what you might call “cheap”. “Thrifty” or “frugal” would be nicer descriptions, but cheap is pretty accurate too. I don’t want to pay any more than I have to. I like to save money. This is mostly a good quality (though if I’m not careful can mean I’m stingy and money-obsessed, with a scarcity mindset) and it’s been beneficial in us having a growing family on a single income.

When we first started considering homeschooling and weighing it against public school, one of my main reservations was about having to spend money on curriculums. Fast forward to today and you’ll see that I am a careful spender with homeschool things- we don’t use a full curriculum; I piece things together, and we also do a lot of interest-led learning and utilize the library and used book store and thrift store to keep costs low. Still, we’re spending more than we would if we didn’t homeschool. Why would we choose to pay money for something we could get for free by choosing public school?

Well, I can confidently give an answer now that we’re several years in: because it’s worth it.

Worth describes value. To be worth it, the thing in question has to be sufficient enough to outweigh the cost.

Everyone makes decisions of worth daily.

Is it worth it to be awoken from a pleasant sleep by an alarm so you’re up before your kids or up in time to go to work? Or is a hurried morning worth an extra 10 minutes of “snooze”?

Would it have been worth it to stay up until midnight doing something enjoyable but feel exhausted today?

Is a cup of prepared coffee worth the $6 it costs? Or is it worth it to spend some money on materials and some extra time each morning making my own in order to save money in the long run?

Is it worth it to put your phone down to instead read a book or have a conversation or play with your kids?

Is it worth the physical exertion it takes to lift weights in order to strengthen your body? Or worth it to stay sitting at the cost of being less fit?

With bigger areas, the questions take more thought to answer, but still there’s a choice.

Is it worth it to spend money on curriculums (not to mention time and energy and intentionality) in order to have control over what and how my children are educated? Or worth it to save money and time by sending them to a government-run school?

Another area our family has chosen to spend more money because we’ve decided it’s worth it is on healthy, real food. Buying a lot of items organic or grass-fed certainly adds up, but we think is worth it to avoid the alternatives and provide our family with the level of nourishment it does.

With the birth of our last (as in most recent, not necessarily final 😉) baby, we chose to have a home birth for many reasons. This cost a few thousand dollars, out of pocket, unlike the insurance-covered hospital birth that would’ve been the alternative. We had to budget and save wisely, and even then there were ways that God provided above our means so that we’d be able to afford the birth this way. But the many benefits of a homebirth (one being that I was finally able to have a vaginal birth!) outweighed the cost and made it worth it.

So what are your “worth it’s”? The big or little things that have a cost and aren’t “necessary” but you’ve chosen them because of the value they hold for you and your family? Let me know in the comments!